Sun Debuts Business Collaboration Platform, IM Server Software

Sun Microsystems rolled out a new real-time business collaboration platform on Monday, tying together e-mail, instant messaging, calendaring, and content management and sharing features.

The platform, which consists of several separate server packages -- Sun ONE Messaging Server, Sun ONE Instant Messaging, Sun ONE Portal, Sun ONE Calendar Server, and Sun ONE Identity Server -- is available now and takes aim at rivals Microsoft and IBM/Lotus in the lucrative collaboration arena, said David Ferris, analyst with Ferris Research. (See related story from CRN.)

"It's a rich offering," he said, "and Sun's stuff is far more outward-looking than Microsoft or Lotus."

Ferris sees the strength of Sun ONE Collaborative Business Platform in the company's long experience in providing messaging and collaboration software and services, a trend that many enterprises are picking up on. "It's been developed from a service-provider perspective and thus is built to work well beyond a corporate firewall, and to scale well," he said.

That advantage will pay off in dividends for Sun in the long run. "Today's collaboration software tends to be used inside the enterprise, but [in the future] it will become incredibly important to reach outsiders."

The platform combines Sun ONE Identity Server and Sun ONE Portal to offer everything via a single sign-on, and pushes the services beyond the corporate walls to remote workers, customers, suppliers, and partners.

Also on Monday, Sun unveiled its Sun ONE Instant Messaging 6.0 software, which will become part of the collaboration platform when it releases in May.

This server-based software includes secure messaging, polling, group conferences, alerts, searching and archiving of messages, and links to third-party anti-spam and antivirus software.

But while Ferris sees Sun's new IM product and the overall collaboration platform as an attractive alternative to Microsoft and IBM, he doesn't expect the company to immediately unseat the leaders in the messaging and marketplace.

"Microsoft and IBM have 'sticky' messaging products, ones that are difficult for other vendors to dislodge," Ferris said. "Sun's platform won't make enterprise IT give up their existing messaging, but it certainly represents opportunities in new classes of users."

This story courtesy of TechWeb.